


Hungry Like the Wolf

by gayrights420



Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Art Theft, Case Fic, Enemies to Lovers, Eventually they fall in love and fight werewolf crime together, Investigation, M/M, Slow Burn, Werewolves, lassiter is secretly a werewolf, shawn is a recovering cocaine addict
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27796774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayrights420/pseuds/gayrights420
Summary: It’s been four years since Shawn moved back to Santa Barbara. Four years since he last used cocaine.He’s built himself a life worth living here, and a psychic detective agency that he runs with his best friend, Gus.But when Gus leaves town for a month and Shawn finds himself alone for the first time in years, he finds himself spiraling, and hiding it so well that it seems no one will be able to help.What seems to be a simple art theft investigation leads Shawn and Detective Carlton Lassiter into a complicated web of supernatural beings, crime and secrecy, and they’ll be lucky if either of them get out alive.
Relationships: Burton "Gus" Guster & Shawn Spencer, Carlton Lassiter & Juliet O'Hara, Carlton Lassiter/Shawn Spencer, Henry Spencer & Shawn Spencer, Henry Spencer/Madeleine Spencer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Hungry Like the Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic and any and all comments are appreciated!  
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> the title is taken from the Duran Duran song, to keep with Psych’s 80s-referencing theme

* * *

  
Santa Barbara was a city apart from itself.

Located in beautiful southern California, gifted with a gentle mediteranean climate, and filled with Spanish colonial architecture, all white stucco walls and red tile roofs, it spread out along the seaside with a gentleness unusual for a city its size.

Shawn Spencer slept restlessly in his “apartment”-- a repurposed dry cleaners, the old Fluff and Fold on the east side of town.

It had been repurposed by Shawn Spencer himself, and only with the addition of one mattress, a large amount of movie memorabilia, and a microwave.  
Shawn often slept restlessly, but it had been especially bad this week. He shifted around and ground his teeth unconsciously, muttering in his sleep.

It was around 4 AM, and outside the dry cleaner’s morning was beginning to peek into the sky, beams of sunlight interrupting the shadows that stretched between the city’s buildings.

The beams of light appeared in alleyways, and in front of frozen yogurt stores, and in the hybrid rain garden/car parks that had begun appearing in city center. All of Santa Barbara began to softly light up, in a gentle golden glow.

As the sunrise stretched on, an observer would notice that it wasn’t just the darkness of night that had been blocking the city from view. A thick blanket of fog hung over it, beginning a few feet off the ground and stretching past most rooftops.

It held the sunlight down, and as the sun continued to rise, the light went with it. Soon enough it would be above the clouds of fog, leaving the city even more obscured.

Santa Barbara had very few streetlights, which usually allowed for locals and tourists alike to see the stars from almost anywhere in town. For 8 months out of the year, the effect was staggering.

When the sun set, cool breezes would drift in from the shoreline, and birds could be heard from the forest on the other side. Everyone felt cradled by both nature and civilization, and people would walk the streets, laughing and talking together sofly, while storefronts kept the glow of their lights on late into the night.

Hikes on the nature trails revealed an even larger number of stars, and from some places, the milky way.

But now it was summer, and the lack of streetlights created an effect that was very... different.

This morning, just like each morning from May through July, Santa barbara’s Small Boat Fishermen would set out on water so blanketed in fog, there was no separation between ocean and sky.

The sun rose sluggishly these mornings. From the forest above the fog clouds, the city looked like a few bright rooftops and streetlamps sprinkled into nothingness.

Or the city looked like nothing at all.

From among the streets, this morning was getting started slowly. Restaurants turned their outside lights up bright as they opened for the day. Cars crawled along the main road, braking carefully at stop signs.

All of the tourists would stay lazy and half-asleep until noon, or later, when the ocean surface temperatures would finally get warm enough for the fog to evaporate, and take the ‘June Gloom’ with it.

The locals weren’t so lucky.

When Shawn Spencer woke up, the dry cleaner’s was shrouded in fog. Thin bands of sunlight streamed through the bottom of the window, peeking in from under the clouds. But it wasn’t the sunlight that finally woke him. It was his phone, blaring noise aggressively on the table next to his head.

Shawn stretched, turned, and buried his face back into the pillow, eyes squeezed shut. His hand reached out and smacked the phone two or three times, knocking it onto the floor. This made things worse, as the phone started vibrating much louder against the wooden floor, but after a while it stopped. Proud of himself, Shawn pulled his knees up to his chest, ready to return fully to sleep.

The phone rang again.

Groaning, Shawn pushed his shoulders off of the bed and tried to reach his arm down onto the floor. He smacked his hand around until he found the phone, and slid his thumb to accept the call.

“Sleeping late, I take it, Shawn?” asked a sarcastic voice.

Shawn sighed.

“It’s 7 am, Dad. It’s closer to my bedtime than anything.”

Henry Spencer echoed his sigh back to him.

“Of course it is. Come over to the house for breakfast, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Shawn took a deep breath after the phone call ended, the sudden silence pulling him fully into the morning.

He wiped his forehead. It was covered in cold sweat.

He’d had another nightmare last night.

In it, Gus was leaving for vacation, just like he was going to next week. But it wasn’t present-day, and they weren’t partners of their psychic detective agency.

It was back right after Shawn moved back home to Santa Barbara. Back when he was too deep in cocaine withdrawal to work and too fed up to start using again, so he slept on Gus’s couch for a month while he went to the outpatient rehab program at the non-profit down the street during each day, and stayed up watching 80s movies and suffering through the effects of withdrawal each night.

In real life, Gus had patiently waited for him to get better. He dropped off cold water bottles on the end table next to Shawn's head as he left for work each morning.

He picked Shawn up from the rehab program and took him to a different hip new food spot every day, introducing Shawn to the 18-inch chili dog, Pizza Soup, and all the other culinary innovations that had quietly popped up in sandwich shops and food trucks all across Santa Barbara while Shawn had been away.

He waited until Shawn’s headaches had subsided enough for them to go to a movie theater again, and then they went to 80s movie marathons at the local theater every Friday, and always stayed through the last feature, even though they wouldn’t get home until 3 am.

Gus had held his hand every step of the way, until Shawn started walking on his own again.

In his dream, it was different. Gus was leaving. Shawn had just gotten home, strung out and sweating and ready to see his best friend for the first time in three years.

“Well,” Dream Gus had said to him, “Good luck,” and Shawn said nothing as Dream Gus’s taxi stretched itself out backwards until it became the airport, and Shawn was suddenly in the airport lobby, holding the backpack that contained everything he owned, watching Dream Gus smile and wave as he walked past security, to his gate, onto his flight, and out of Dream Shawn’s life forever.

The memory of the dream was fading fast, but Shawn felt an ache in his jaw from grinding his teeth, and knew that it had impacted him deeply.

He felt embarrassed, as if Gus would somehow know about this objectively very clingy dream and judge him for it. Or worse, feel too worried to go on his trip to Canada because of it.

Shawn was grateful as the memory of his dream continued to fade from his grasp. He didn’t want to spend any more time in that part of his subconscious, the part that apparently didn’t care at all that Gus had his own life and deserved to have nice things.

So what if this was the first time in years that Shawn and Gus would be separated for more than a few days? He had been clean for a long time, and he would continue to stay clean. He could do this. He was strong. He could rely on himself.

Shawn spent longer than he should have getting ready, taking his time in the shower and rubbing his temples and jawline, trying to use the hot steam to get his clenched muscles to relax.

Afterwards, he put some coffee grounds into the little drip coffee maker that was placed precariously on top of his microwave, which was, in turn, placed even more precariously on a cheap card table. He thought about microwaving some pop tarts but thought better of it, already later than he was comfortable being.

Outside, he glanced at his phone while throwing his leg over his motorcycle and cringed, knowing that Henry would be angry with him for being late, despite only having a few hours notice.

His dad was always critical like that. He may not have been able to make Shawn follow in his detective footsteps, but he could still constantly push his son towards perfection, no matter how unnecessary perfection was in the situation.

It was.. great. Especially on a sunday morning, and especially before 10 am.

Shawn slowed his bike down carefully as he approached his childhood home, and parked it just outside the picket fence.  
The house was small, and cute. The white wash and red trim blended in nicely with the view of the coastline that spread out across the road in front of it.

As Shawn walked up to the front door, Henry Spencer appeared around the side.

“Hey,” said Shawn.

“Come on,” said Henry, moving back around the side of the house. “I need to clean the workshop out.”

Shawn moved after him slowly. “What about breakfast?” he called indignantly.

“Later!” yelled Henry, as he disappeared behind a pile of boxes.

Shawn tried to ignore his growling belly, and wished he hadn’t been invited over under the pretext of free food, or that he had been smart enough to eat at home before coming over anyway.

An hour later, Shawn was still lugging large pieces of wood from one wall of the workshop to another, and the workshop was just as much of a mess. There was no organizational plan that he could see, and he was pretty sure that the workshop was actually looking worse the more they messed with it.

He was starting to feel more than a little fed up.

He had been here since before 9 am, it was a Saturday, been given anything to eat or drink at all except for a small glass of weird-tasting water from Henry’s kitchen, and he was starting to believe the “breakfast” he had been invited over for wasn’t happening at all. He wished he had brought some coffee.

Eventually, Henry Spencer laid down the power tool he had been trying to find a space for.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s eat breakfast.”

Shawn stepped over the objects strewn all over the workshop floor. He had no idea why this, instead of any other point, was when the workshop was deemed “organized enough” for them to stop. It looked exactly the same as when they had started. No... it looked worse.

Definitely worse.

Shawn sat quietly at the kitchen table, sipping his water, and watched his dad fry steak and eggs in a pan. He leaned back in his chair, and realized he was drenched in sweat for the second time this morning.

The noises of his dad cooking filled the kitchen, and Shawn watched the clock tick forward as minutes stretched into a long uncomfortable silence.

“So,” said Shawn. “What did you need to talk to me about?”

Henry didn’t look up from the stove as he responded. “After breakfast.”

Shawn just sighed in response, at the same time that Henry did. His dad pushed the steak and eggs onto plates, brought them over to the table, and sat down.

They ate together in silence for several minutes, until Henry abruptly said “Your mother and I are getting back together.”

Shawn choked on his drink. “What?”

Henry just looked at him exasperatedly, before taking another bite of his breakfast.

“My mom?” Shawn asked incredulously. “My mother? Why, Dad? You didn’t spend enough years ignoring and neglecting her the first time around?”

Henry threw his fork down with a clatter. “You know, Shawn, you have no idea what you’re talking about. You have no idea the toll that being a detective takes on a marriage-”

“Uh, yeah, dad, I think i do know. I was the one who sat with mom all those evenings when you were out on overtime, again. I was the one who consoled mom after you finally decided to just leave her for good. Not you, dad. Your teenage son. Who you weren’t particularly interested in either, by the way. And now what? You’ve finally got enough free time, you’ve enjoyed enough years of retirement that you want a wife to cook and clean for you again? Did you forget that Mom’s not planning to retire anytime soon? Do you really think she’ll have the time for you? Is now really the best time to start over, to try do it all over again?”

Henry pushed his chair back from the table violently, and it made a terrible sound on the tile floor.

He paused, and composed himself. “You know about starting over better than most, don’t you, Shawn?” He asked quietly and calmly.

He made eye contact. Years of experience had taught him how to get under a criminal’s skin.

He had the skills to make a man fall apart with just a few words and a few pieces of evidence. And sometimes, he used those skills on his son.

“Don’t.” Shawn replied softly.

“Are you going to call me next time you need someone to bail you out? Next time you lose your job as a.. Hotdog Salesman or whatever you do, run out of money, and coincidentally decide that it’s ‘finally time to go to rehab’? Next time you decide to start over?”

Shawn started shoving his things in his pockets haphazardly and grabbed his motorcycle helmet. “I’ve had a steady job for three years now. And i’m great at it” he said angrily.

Henry paused and looked at him. “Yeah.” he replied. “Conning the police department and pretending to be a psychic. Just the type of job I would expect from a coke addict.”

Shawn hurriedly turned and speed-walked outside. The door cut off whatever Henry was saying next, and Shawn, with that last word still ringing in his ears, stormed angrily across the yard and kicked his bike, hurting his foot, before getting on it. Without a backward glance, he kicked up the kickstand and roared off down the street.

Some breakfast that was, thought Shawn.

He sighed deeply and took a right turn at the next intersection, headed straight for the Tex-Mex Breakfast Taco stand at the end of Mulholland Drive, the one by the beach.

After second breakfast, the rest of the morning passed in that specific type of blur that happens when you wake up too early or too abruptly, and nothing you do shakes you out of the resulting fog.

Around 2 pm, Shawn called Gus. After two rings, Gus picked up.

“Shawn, no.” he said immediately. Gus was trying to sound annoyed, but Shawn could hear his smile through the phone.

“Come on!” Shawn pleaded. “Let’s go out drinking. Have a good old boy’s night. You know, invite Lassiter, get six drinks deep, witness a murder in the parking lot, spend the rest of the night half-drunk tracking the killer until we discover that he’s no other that the Homicidal Handyman, the serial killer that’s been terrorizing Santa Barbara for the last 8 years.”

“First of all,” began Gus with a huff, “they caught the Homicidal Handyman last year, Shawn. It was Lassiter’s case! He got a commendation from the mayor. And second of all, I told you!” Gus lowered his voice, and Shawn could hear the noises of his coworkers bustling in the background. “I have a really important meeting with my boss tonight. He’s considering letting me be the first international representative of West Coast Pharmaceuticals.”  
  
“Fine,” replied Shawn. “Then at least take a lady out for dinner. We should get jerk chicken tonight.”

“You know that’s right,” said Gus.

Shawn hung up the phone, feeling much better about everything. Gus always made him feel better. It wasn’t Gus’s job, but he always did it anyway.

After a moment of quiet appreciation for his friend, Shawn remembered the events of the day so far, and felt queasy. There was nothing like having your retired-detective-father yell at your for your life choices to give you a good old dose of guilt and shame.

He felt even worse considering his over-the-top nightmare, one of many over-the-top nightmares he’d been having recently, all brought on by what was, according to the targeted ads about nightmares Shawn was getting now, a major life event that was shaking his psyche.

A major life event. His best friend going on a well-deserved, month-long vacation to what was arguably the best culinary school in the world. At least the best culinary school in North America. (Now that he thought about it, there were probably better culinary schools all over the world in non-english-speaking majority countries, that would never even be in the rankings, because they hadn’t been “discovered” by some white foodie from the Upper East Side of New York.  
Anyway.)

Gus deserved better. He deserved a friend who could handle Gus being gone for a little bit, Gus having his own life, Gus taking a month off of having to always be around and available, just in case staying on the wagon got difficult enough for Shawn to worry about falling off.

Henry was right.

Shawn should be handling things on his own.

He resolved himself not to tell Gus about the dreams, or the argument with his dad that morning.  
It was less than a week before Gus’s vacation, and there was no way he would go through with it if Shawn brought all of this up to him now.

They went out to dinner together before Gus’s big meeting, and Shawn didn’t bring up the fight with Henry. He knew that if he brought his feelings up, a whole bunch of other feelings would come stumbling out too, and not only would his very best friend cancel his long-awaited vacation, but Shawn would prove Henry right for thinking him immature and selfish. And childish. And a…. a coke addict.

Shawn lost track of what Gus was saying as he white-knuckled his drink glass. You’d think that four years of being clean would mean a little bit more to the people you love.

“Shawn, did you hear what I said?” Gus’s voice filtered over top of Shawn’s inner monologue, shaking him back to reality.

“I said,” Gus started again, “I talked to my boss earlier, and… it’s official! The meeting tonight is just a formality. I got the go-ahead to network on vacation, and I’m going to be the first ever Central Coast Pharmaceutical employee to have a mail-order, international route. All sorts of people from Canadian high society go to the summer program at the Middlewinter School of Culinary Arts. I’m talking doctors, Shawn. Canadian doctors. Doctors who will soon want to buy all their pharmaceuticals from yours truly.”

Gus paused to take a sip of his drink. He was practically glowing with excitement.

“I still can’t believe that Middlewinter has a super-secret scholarship, where everyone who goes to one of their day classes is entered, and 1 student is randomly chosen for their most expensive and exclusive residential program. And that they chose me. This is like--” he took a bite of jerk chicken “--the best thing that could have happened for my career.”

“Pssh” replied Shawn. “I can believe it. And they’re lucky they chose you. Name one other untrained chef who can make an 8-layer s'more with both the flavor and structural foundation that you have.”

“Oh, no one,” said Gus.

“Exactly,” said Shawn. “No one.”

They fist-bumped goodnight after they were done eating, and Shawn grinned up at his best friend.

“Knock ‘em dead. But not literally. Unless you think Psych could get a case out of it, then maybe knock ‘em dead.”

“I hear that,” replied Gus, smiling as he shook his suit jacket over his shoulders. “See you tomorrow?”

“Hell yeah.” Shawn smiled back.

As Shawn rode his bike back home, he bargained with himself the whole way.

He was not going to spiral again tonight until he fell asleep, and he was not going to then head straight into another stress-dream.

He had had, by all accounts, a pretty good day. A day that at least picked itself up from the mess it started in. So what if he had woken up about 6 hours earlier than he wanted to, so what if he had to hear both some bad news and harsh criticism, all in one day?

That was the way it was sometimes.

Shawn checked his watch as he stepped off his bike: 8:30.

And again while laying in bed, determined to have an early and relaxing night: 8:45.

And again as he stepped out of the shower, determined to have an early and relaxing night: 9:08.

After another 20 minutes of laying in bed staring at the ceiling, Shawn abruptly stood up, pulled on his jacket, and hopped back on his bike.

He wasn’t even thinking as he headed straight for his favorite queer bar, Space Odyssey, at the edge of downtown Santa Barbara, where clubs and theaters and high end boutiques gave way to family-owned diners and used bookstores.

He felt so relieved as he sped down the city streets on his bike. It felt so good not to try and have a good night, when he knew he was going to have a bad one either way.

At least this way he wouldn’t be alone with his thoughts.

Inside the bar Shawn ordered a vodka cranberry and looked around cautiously. There were a lot of college kids here tonight.

Shawn sidled past a big crowd of them and out into the garden, where an indie rock band was playing, and small groups were sitting together at different tables, smoking.

He felt someone walk up and stand next to him. He glanced over nervously, and saw a man several inches taller than him, dressed in all black, with a neatly trimmed beard.

“Hey”.

He swallowed nervously. “Hey.”


End file.
